But because our foreign policy is so tightly (and, because both major parties are pretty Atlanticist, seemingly irrevocably) pegged to the US's, whoever the president is affects us a great deal. I think we should get a vote. I mean, if we're going to be the 51st state, we may as well get state's rights, for fucks sake.

But thats the thing about Islamic fundamentalism/terrorism. Its a post-colonial political movement, its a reaction against the west's presence there, not just military, but cultural and in the form of diplomatic meddling also. Its a very complex situation, to which my response would be, as a country like the UK which yeah used to have an empire but now has had that replaced by a sense of inflated national importance, to just leave well alone. It is not our problem. It is, however, the USA's. So you guys are still a little screwed. But the UK, we can afford to be a little isolationist, at least regards to outside of the EU.

In so far as that to see Islamic Fundamentalism and Terrorism as a reaction against the West is a slight simplification. It's a call for a singular Islamic state to be established across the middle East and, in its extreme form, an eradication by any means necessary of any Jews in the region and a belief that anyone who doesn't believe in an extremely strict belief in Islam should be punished by death.

It is a reaction to the West but to see it as some kind of anti-Capitalist movement against the West ignores the fact that many of the Western values it opposes the most include democracy, women's liberation, human rights, homosexual rights, freedom of worship, freedom of speech etc.

And its all very well to push for an isolationist strategy, and its probably pragamatic to do so. Certainly I'd agree that attempting to intervene is opening a can of worms and has the potential to cause more problems than it solves.

And ultimately if we walk away and leave Islamic Fundamenalists to establish the society they want to create then what does that do for women, homosexuals, trade unionists, leftists etc. in those countries? To allow Islamic fundamentalism to spread unopposed is to potentially condemn these people to torture and death.

And maybe ultimately we can't solve all the problems of the world and maybe it is ultimately in our best interests to leave well alone and not get involved. I'm not necessarily arguing for an interventionist foreign policy. But I am saying that, if we choose not to intervene, then all those deaths in those regimes we could get involved in but choose not to are to an extent on our collective conscience.

pretty much everything the anti war camp said has been shown to be right and it's a near unwinnable war.

I don't know how we should leave or when, all I can say is that it was immense folly to go there and has been detrimental to every single party involved. No one has come out any better off other than the terrorists who weren't there in the first place.

Civil war is inevitable it is just a question of what will happen afterwards and who will win.

Regardless of whether you felt there should or shouldn't be a war, we invaded and took out a dictatorship that had been power for thirty years and had no obvious infrastructure to replace it.

Since the war various Baathists and Islamic Fundamentalists have been attempting to destroy attempts to build democracy there and attempted to either restore the Baathist regime or turn the country into a fundamentalist theocracy along the lines of Iran.

Ultimately, whether we like it or not, now we've got involved in Iraq it is entirely our problem and we owe it to the Iraqi people to stay as long as it takes to deliver the kind of free and fair democracy we told them we were gonna give 'em when we invaded.

As bad as the civilian deaths and the fighting has been in the last 5 years, it'd be all the worse if those deaths were in vain because we've abandoned them to a regime every bit a bad as the one we've removed in the first palce.

How else could you explain the UKs policy towards Iraq since before the Iran/iraq war

(of course I realise that a lot of things were mistakes in hindsight.....Im being sarcastic, because the UK seems to assume that 'by doing something' it will always be better than 'doing nothing', no matter how niave or unwise that 'something' is))

Your second point I don't really follow. There's several dictatorships across the world Britian refuses to get involved in. We've done nothing about Saudi Arabia and did all we could not to stop the genocide in Bosnia in the 1990s until the situation became genuinely unignorable.

It's simply inaccurate to say Britan always "does something". It frequently does nothing and people seem to complain either way.

Britain has done something about the Saudi regime.......I decided to continually supply arms to Saudi Arabia.
The biggest arms deal in history (the fall out is still occuring....see british aerospace bribes etc) was initiated during thatchers time, (with Mark Thatcher and Jonothon aitkin's presence) giving implicit official approval.

Yes, not supporting those who rose up agains Sadamm after the 'liberation' of Kuwait was awful (like Stalin and the jewish uprising in Warsaw....'kind of'....well it bears a comparrisom with)
However I think that you will find that the UK has had an awful lot of involvement with Iraq previous to this too.

Who so you think drew all those pretty straight lines in the desert?
Who supplied to both Iran and Iraq (along with the French, chinese, russians and the US)

Who, bizarrely, inadvertantly provided the Ayotollah Khomeni with 50 of the most advanced (briefly) MBTs (main battle tank) in the world? (The 'Shir Iran')

Check out the very very tiny seaboard that Iraq has. Check out also the area of oilfields that are shared by Iraq and Kuwait. Check out whar happened with these during the Iran Iraq war for instance. tHE uk has indeed done an awful lot in this region.

Admitedly a lot of ,mistakes might only seem so in hindsight.

However the non persuance of Sadaam the first time was unforgivable in my mind, it is utterly appalling, that we allowed the shia opposition and kurdish opposition hope and then failed to deliver.

Of course there was also prolonged support of Sadaam many years previous to invading Kuwait when he committed many attrocities against his own people and the shias and the Kurds (including the much later touted 'nerve gassing') yet the US and UK government were silent on this at the time......it was because he was seen as 'an ally' a bloodthirsty and brutal dictator ally.....it was only when he overstepped the mark and attacked another ally (Kuwait)

Britain only has limited resources, so it does use its resources to 'DO something'

(apart from nuclear capability)

Post colonialism (which is assumed to be a 'bad thing') The mistake is made that if you (as a caring democratic nation) do something, to effect a political situation, where you are not colonialing, then it isnt a bad thing.......just often 'mistaken' (in hindsight)
It would be nice if western democracies could try to apply better foresight, unfortunately in matters of security the (legitimate and reasonble) expediant of secrecy is not helpful when trying t odetermine whether your country has actually done the best it could, or, if they could have been wiser. The US should be well aware that wars where the population is regarded as 'them' they are probably unwinnable (see vietnam, with consequent cambodia)

Western democracies are still fusto and macho, and unfortunately overestimate their ability (not of their forces or weoponry or troop caliber,) but of the correctness of their premise. When their premise of trying to make things better by having a more favourable government for western democracies ends up facing more direct and simple premises of their opposition they will never ever win.

Western Democracies also seem to assume another sort of competance......like in afghanistan......well the soviets couldnt tame it totally.....but we are so much better than them so there should be no problem......hah.

Dont get me wrong, the west could/can improve the situation in afghanistan, but not with the atitude/competance that the UK and US government has at the moment.

I could do it.........because I have even more arrogance and over self-estimation than western democratic leadership. (I would of course ned a very wide remit and far reaching, nearly dictatorial powers)